Endoscopy is a medical procedure that provides a clinician access to anatomical structures (e.g., the esophagus, gastrointestinal tract, pelvic cavity, or respiratory tract) in a minimally invasive manner for visual inspection, imaging, biopsy, manipulation, or other diagnostic or surgical purposes. A variety of different endoscope designs have been developed and adapted for use in the context of accessing particular anatomical structures, such as the gastrointestinal tract (e.g., colonoscopes, gastroscopes, and sigmoidoscopes), the respiratory tract (e.g., rhinoscopes and bronchoscopes), the abdominal or pelvic cavity (e.g., laparascopes), and the reproductive system (e.g., hysteroscopes and falloscopes).
Many types of endoscopes are known and they typically comprise a rigid or flexible body, an illumination means (e.g., light or light delivery system), an imaging means (e.g. lens system or camera), and one or more distally-positioned medical tools (e.g., biopsy forceps, injection needles, haemostatic clips, electrosurgical snares, grasping baskets, retrieval nets, and suction tips), all of which are in communication with equipment that controls their respective functions.
Endoscopic foreign body retrieval is a frequently required procedure in both adult and pediatric gastroenterology and pulmonology, and there are numerous approaches to retrieval. A foreign body may be any ingested object, such as, for example, a food bolus, coin, button, tooth, fish bone, battery, etc. The method selected by a clinician to retrieve a foreign body often depends upon a variety of factors, including but not limited to, the specific patient, the foreign body, the anatomical structure(s) involved, the available equipment, and the clinician's personal experience and preference. Typically, the procedure involves multiple attempts to grasp the foreign body using an endoscope with distally-positioned retrieval nets, forceps, or other grasping device. Although such devices have been used for foreign body retrieval procedures, they are not designed for such use and therefore have numerous limitations, including but not limited to, high cost, limited visibility, patient tissue injury and/or discomfort, prolonged procedure time and cost, and failure to retrieve the foreign body.
Such devices and procedures are also unsuitable for emergency removal of a foreign body, such as from an esophagus, bronchus, or proximal gastrointestinal tract. One observed example of such deficiency is that a conventional retrieval net is sometimes unable to grasp or surround an entire foreign body or bypass beyond a foreign body. In part, this is due to the orientation and malleable nature of a conventional net's support wires. Another observed example of such deficiency is that conventional forceps are prone to difficulty in obtaining and maintaining control of a foreign body. Similarly, conventional snare devices have been observed to have difficulty in grasping a foreign body without causing it to break apart. Due to the deficiencies of such conventional devices, multiple attempts to remove a foreign body are often required, which can lead to, among other difficulties, prolonged procedure times and increased incidence of tissue trauma.
Instead of such devices and procedures, or if such devices and procedures do not successfully retrieve a foreign body, an endoscope with a distally-positioned banding and suction device, such as the SpeedBand SuperView Super 7™ Multiple Band Ligator (Boston Scientific, Natick, Mass.), may be employed. However, even these devices have their limitations, such as poor distal visibility, no mechanism of securing a suctioned foreign body, instrument expense, and inability to retrieve larger foreign bodies.